The canvas

Moving around

Zoom goes from 15% to 1500%. The same controls sit at the bottom right, next to the minimap: drag inside the minimap to move, scroll on it to zoom.

Adding nodes

Double-click an empty spot to open the node picker. Type to search by name, move with the arrows, Enter adds the node where you clicked, Esc closes. Tab switches between the families (All, Files and media, Web and apps, Canvas, Desk, Pipeline) while you keep typing.

Other ways to add a node:

• the QuickDock at the bottom: click a chip for a node in the middle of the view, drag it to drop the node where you let go;
• the canvas menu (right-click on empty canvas) → Add node here;
• the command palette, Ctrl K;
• dragging files and folders from File Explorer.

What a dropped file becomes

Several files land side by side, up to four per row. Dropped on a Folder node, files are copied into that folder; hold Shift to move them instead. Dropped on a program that’s running in a node, they go to the program, as if you’d dropped them on its window.

The canvas menu

Right-click on empty canvas: Add node here, Paste, Fit view, Reset zoom, Rearrange nodes (puts the nodes of the canvas back in order) and Clear canvas, which asks first and can be undone.

Selecting and arranging

Drag on empty canvas to draw a selection box: a node only has to touch it. Shift + click adds a node to the selection or takes it out, Ctrl A selects every node on the canvas.

With two or more nodes selected, a bar appears above them:

• Group puts them in a frame;
• Arrange lays them out in rows, columns or a mosaic;
• Align lines up their edges or centers;
• Distribute spaces them evenly (from three nodes up);
• Delete.

Nodes snap to a 24-pixel grid, and guides appear when an edge lines up with another node.

Every node’s menu

Each node has a menu in its header (the ··· button, or right-click on the header). Besides its own commands it always has Duplicate, Copy, Cut, Move to project (to another workspace), Move to canvas 1 / 2, Bring forward, Send backward, collapse and expand, and Delete.

Drag an edge or a corner to resize a node.

Copy, paste, undo

Undo works on the canvas: nodes, positions, wires. Operations on files (deleting, renaming, moving) are undone from History, see Folders and files.

Groups

A group is a dashed frame. Move the frame and everything inside moves with it. Drag nodes in and out, rename it, pick one of eight colors. Groups don’t nest. Delete group removes only the frame: the nodes stay where they were.

Two canvases

Every workspace has two canvases. The two dots under the workspace pill switch between them, and so do Ctrl Alt ← and Ctrl Alt →. New nodes appear on the canvas you’re looking at; Move to canvas in a node’s menu sends it to the other one. Use the second canvas for what you want close at hand but out of the way.

Workspaces

A workspace is a project: its own canvases, nodes and programs. They’re listed in the column on the left; drag to reorder them, click to open one. The + creates a new one, either Empty or Photographer (three linked nodes ready for a photo job: the folder you shoot into, a review, the delivery folder; you pick the folders afterwards).

Right-click a workspace for Rename, Duplicate workspace, Set as default, Export as JSON and Delete. There’s also Delete empty workspaces. Deleting a workspace doesn’t close the programs that were in it: they stay open in Windows.

The pill at the top center shows the name and the save state; click it to rename or delete the workspace.

The command palette

Ctrl K opens a search box for commands: new workspace, add an app, add a node, open settings, keyboard shortcuts, report a problem, and the list of workspaces sorted by last change.

If Warpstead crashes

After a crash Warpstead starts again with your work, and says so (you can turn this off in Settings → Advanced). If it crashes three times in a row, it opens in recovery mode instead: a list of saved backups, where you can restore one or start empty.